The Masters of the Marsh
by Mindtrick
Summary: Ferris Blackmyre leads his men against a Frey party as they make their way along the Causeway.


**The Masters of the Marsh**

It was a warm, damp evening in the southern reaches of the Neck. Sporadic light from the bulbs of the lumos reeds, cast dull yellow light, giving the marsh an eerie glow. Ferris Blackmyre pierced the gloom with the ease of a man who had always called the Neck his home. He loosened the steel sheathed at his side, his mottled lizard gloved hand curled around the plain hilt. A hissing rasp broke through the din, as it slid from its scabbard.

Unlike his guard and most Crannogmen, Ferris favoured the sword over the spear or the trident. A fine steel sword it was too, especially in a world of bronze. Outside of the Neck it was no doubt a fairly simple blade, but to Ferris, it was his prize possession. It had been given to him by the Young Wolf Robb Stark, as he travelled the Causeway through the Neck due south to the Riverlands.

Before his betrayal.

Ferris held his breath. He crouched low behind the overgrown reeds and fronds providing him with cover for his broad, stocky frame. He wore ringmail over a soft quilted doublet, with a rough lizard over jerkin. He blended into his surroundings, like the native ferocious lizard-lion, he was a hunter poised to strike. He peered from his hidden vantage point at the Frey raiding party, warily making its way through the bog. Ferris could smell their fear, they wanted nothing more than to be back at the Twins in the safety of their craven masters house.

Ferris looked to his left, four men of Blackmyre, clad in the same dark green and brown garb as himself, were crouched awaiting his signal. He knew across the Causeway more fellow Crannogmen would be waiting under the orders of the captain of the Blackmyre household guard, Derrick Crowley.

The men to Ferris's side knocked arrows in their short recurved bows and picked their targets. The Freys outnumbered Ferris' small patrol two to one, but within the Neck even those odds would still be heavily in his favour.

Ferris croaked, the deep rolling, rumbling, bass of the Wyrmfrog, indigenous to the Neck. A man raised in The Neck would recognise that the call of a Wyrmfrog would not be heard this far south. It was their call to arms. The perfect covert cry to inform his comrades to loose their arrows at the unsuspecting Frey's.

Arrows took flight. Six Frey men hit the ground, expertly pierced between the joints of their armour. Immediately, the party halted. Steel was drawn. A circle formed around fallen brothers. But for the myriad sounds of the living swamp, silence hung heavy, tension thick in the air. The Frey party desperately searched the gloom for their assailants, their eyes wild as they tried to pierce the green, yellow hue of the marsh. Not one foot left the safety of the road, they dared not leave the Causeway, as every footstep became a tempt of fate.

Then the screams filled the fetid air.

The men flecked with arrows began to shrill and pierce the din with inhuman cries, clutching at the searing pain that now tore through them from the arrows embedded in their inflamed bodies. They writhed. They heaved. They bled. Their eyes ran red with their burning lifeblood, their noses were filled with the revolting stench of seemingly rotting flesh, their ears were filled with piercing ringing, their mouths tasted of ash. Bodies aflame, their fate was sealed.

_Such a beautiful sight, the poison of Redmoon __Toad__. _Ferris thought.

Alarmed the Frey men turned towards their stricken kinsmen putting their backs to the marshland. The leader, a heavyset brute of a man, tried to call for calm and order, but panic had set deeply in his men. The fear was palpable. It hung heavy in the air, weighing down the already heavily loaded warriors within their armoured shells. It was folly to don such protection in the marsh. It was folly, no, fatal to betray the Starks and Winterfell.

_Fools._

Like wraiths, slipping from the concealment of shadows, eight Crannogmen, silently joined the road. Through the piercing screams of the dying Freys, they assaulted the Causeway.

Ferris's blade licked out, slashing a throat, spraying blood into the air. He spun and eased his steel through another's back and out the other side. The man cried out impaled on cold steel, he slumped lifeless to his knees. Ferris placed a foot on his back and dragged his blade free. He could see his fellow Crannogmen thrust with spear and trident, and quickly overwhelm the raiders. Blood ran free, slicking the Causeway.

The last of the Frey party standing was the leader. He held two of Ferris's brothers at bay, with sword and shield. He was skilled, his shield an agile and impregnable bulwark against the Crannogmen's attacks. The shield was of fine craft, The Twins heraldry proudly emblazoned on its face. An affront to his kinsmen.

"Stand aside." Ferris said softly. At once, his two men disengaged from the fight, sinking back to join the ranks of their brothers.

"Neck scum." The Frey spat. He hefted his shield and crashed his sword across its front, the metallic clang ringing through the bog. Ferris could make out the man's scornful features, a tailored moustache that ran to his chin, a weak jaw, a hooked nose.

With a flick of his wrist, Ferris ordered the silencing of the Frey men taken down in the initial assault. The six that were held in the clutches of the Redmoon venym, deftly administered by the poisoned arrows, had their throats cut.

_A_ _mercy_.

"Bastard!" The big Frey came lumbering toward Ferris, shield raised to block any attack. The Frey blade swept toward him. Ferris though new to the sword style of battle was seemingly a natural. He stepped inside the arc of the blade and batted it aside with considerable strength. Strength gained through years of powering longboats through the Marsh had developed strong shoulder and arm muscles in Ferris. Following the motion of his parrying blade, Ferris spun. Now close enough that his long sword was no longer of use in such close quarters. With an unexpected agility, Ferris drew a long knife from his waist and plunged it into the unprotected flank of the Frey. A haggard grunt escaped the Frey's lips. Ferris danced away, out of reach of any retaliatory strike. Ferris stopped and waited, his blade held wide sharp tip facing the ground, ready to respond to any counter. But the knife had done its required work. It had found the Frey's kidney. Blood trickled through ringmail and steel plate. The Frey struggled, but stumbled to one knee. He shook off his arms, the sound of steel clattering to the Causeway. He reached up ripped the helm from his head. He was a deathly white. The blood loss already affecting his level of consciousness. Spittle lined his moustache and face as he drew in haggard breaths of fetid marsh air. Ferris moved to stand beside him. Mercilessly he slashed downward and in one precise cut, took the head from his shoulders. Gouts of hot, scarlet blood erupted forth.

They stripped the bodies. Sixteen steel swords, ringmail and pieces of plate armour were wrapped in Frey cloaks and divided between the men to be carried back to Blackfen Hall, the seat of House Blackmyre.

_Our enemies bleed, and with every kill, we grow stronger_.

As self-sufficient as the people of the Neck were, good steel was a high commodity, and in times of war, not something that could be passed over. Slowly the Houses of the Neck were stepping into the modern age, rearmament had begun with the replacing of bronze with steel. For so long the people of the Marsh had remained secluded from the rest of Westeros. But war had come to their land. Northern brothers were either dead or traitors. The Starks, true Lords of Winterfell and the North, knew the power and worth of the Crannogmen.

_And now, so would the rest of the __S__even __Ki__ngdoms._

Unceremoniously the bodies were rolled from the Causeway and into the bog. The Neck would claim them and wash away all trace of their existence.

"Right men, load the long boats. We head back to the Fens." Ferris addressed his men as they worked. As a noble of the House of Blackmyre he had been given charge of patrolling the southern border by his uncle Lord Gorlan Blackmyre.

Ferris cast his eyes once again over the bodies of the Frey's. The bog slowly captured them, snaring them in their sands dragging them to their final resting place on the reed bed. They would be missed. Four had been knights, judging from the heavy plate armour they wore. Not a loss to be borne graciously. More men would come.

And with sword and spear, Ferris and his Blackmyre men would be there and waiting.

_MIGHT OF THE MIRE._


End file.
